She had earned an accounting degree before her marriage — a fact Derek had spent years encouraging everyone, including her, to forget — and she started, tentatively, managing the financial records for one of my repair shops, two hours a day, from home.

Then more.

And I watched, week by week, as competence returned to her hands and, with it, something far more important, something Derek and Brenda had worked for years to take: the beginning of her belief that she was, in fact, capable.

Chapter 17 — This Money Is Mine

A few months later, Gaby landed her first independent corporate client, entirely on her own, without my name behind it or my help arranging it.

And when her first payment arrived — eight thousand dollars, wired directly to her own account, in her own name — she came running into my office with tears standing in her eyes.